person you see on the straight everyday might be from mars. analysis is on on a meteorite that landed in the sahara in 2007. it is from mars and has ten times more water than other meteorites, proving that life may be present even now on the red planet. speaking of things on the red planet. a solar eruption, this week so big, it extended outword 20 times the diameter of earth. wow. look that, sue. >> wow. that's -- that's why the satellite feed was interrupt sewed many times at cnbc this week opinion oi all right, let's take a look at the market. the market isn't on fire but we are up 23 points on the industrial average. nasdaq still negative, ty. have a great weekend. that does it for us on "power lunch." >> you too, sue. and "street signs" begins right now.

welcome to "street signs" everybody. on this jobs friday. happy friday. sully is sick today and therefore he is resting up. anyway, debt ceiling be damned. we have two bosses who say they have to hire in spite of all of the noise coming out of washington. also flu fears are spiking. more and more states are getting hit and cases are getting worse so we will look at the big impact and a river does not run through it. how the shut down of one iconic waterway could cost thousands of jobs and billions to the american economy and royal digs. we take a look at what it could cost you to own a great british estate like downtown abbey. let's look at the markets. i know it doesn't feel like the markets are moving that much today but here is an amazing step that will blow your mind. this week, we will see the biggest weekly gains for three major averages, since december

2011. that's right, since december 2011. that's a long time ago, folks. why don't bewe get straight down to the floor of the new york stock exchange. rick santelli, we will get to you in a second at the cme. bob, apart from the jobs, what are people focussing on there today. >> its bean a great week. all of the gains came on one day. you want it see the fiscal cliff or r or the resolution of fiscal cliff. there is your resolution on wednesday. problem is, aside from that, this is about new money coming into the market. volumes extremely heavy on that wednesday. an market is up five years in a row on the trading day. that is also about new money. volumes dropped off dramatically in the last two days. next week will be much more about reality. i do want to note today, we had some notable weakness in some of the big tech names. apple is nothing for the last accept r several days. finally, i got a lot of

questions about the vix dropping to near multi-year lows. i want it point out what this vix is. measuring implied volatility on one month out. everyone sequestered in february and about the debt ceiling, all of that is the end of february and beginning of march. vix is worried about one month out and that in the first week of february. it is not capturing that worry. if you look at vix futures here, you will see fix is a much higher in the future just out one or two monthes. that's a steepening of the vix curb. that's reflecting a little bit more of the concerns and i can assure you. if we don't resolve this, it is 13 now, we will be much higher in one month from now. >> thank you. today we've got jobless rates still real sticky at the top. people a little bit more calm about the feds hawkish. what are yields doing now? >> the treasury complex is kind

of like a giant coffee cup and believe me, we all know by the inflows of the last couple years, it's full. where the tipping point comes in, i can't tell you but we are definitely splashing coffee around. the ten-year is up 22 days as we sit mandy and 30-year bond is up 26 bases points. that's on the week for both mature its. i think what fed did, it had qe4 remorse, so to speak. i think they were thinking about the fiscal cliff and kind of like y2k, wanting to make sure it was overliquefied. i think in the end, maybe what they think, is they kept leaders from being pressured by the stock market at a time that might have been most beneficial. >> i like your phrase. the ultimate buyer's remorse. thank you rick and bob. we are manufacturing was a real bright spot in the jobs report. the question is, can manufacturing growth hold up against the debt ceiling drama? let's bring in drew greenblatt.

president of marlin steel and president and ceo of burkis engineering. good to have you on the show again. drew, you are predicting 20% increase for your business. are you saying washington be damned? >> exactly. we are forging forward. plowing ahead. we will be growing this year. we think it is going to be with head winds though. not because washington is cooperating. washington gives us a 20% cost differential against your competitors like january dan, japan and mexico, and europe. right now we have burdens. torts, taxes, regulations, that slow us down. despite all that, marlin steel will do well. but it is an unnecessary head wind for our economy. if we can unleash this and leverage the cost differential, we would grow even faster. >> matt, what about you? you add record year last year, inspite of what washington is doing or not doing, is this year

even better. >> 2013 will be a record year again. we think we will double by the time 2015. we had that growth on the books. drew is right, how further could we go and the government isn't helping the way they handle small business entrepreneurs in the tax code. last time i was on, it made all of the sense in the world for the government to recognize the big boy's tax rates aren't fair globally. they are talking about reducing those. what they just did is increased the small business tax and it just gives us one more thing to worry about and contend with when cash is the one thing we need to grow. >> unthe less, did it create more or less uncertainty for you, matt? >> definitely less. one issue that people need to recognize, is there are actually capacity issues. there is a number of jobs that could be had. there's a number of good companies that survive the recession that are at capacity. maxed at. there are a number of oems, like

automotive companies that want it continue to get back it where they were, they need this capacity in the united states. they are forced to go off-shore and find that capacity. they don't want to go off-shore, they have to go off-shore. we need the government to encourage entrepreneurs to take risk, invest and good out and gre and they are not leping that problem. >> what would you like them to do, drew? >> like we discussed. we need tort reform. we spend a lot of money paying lawyers and insurance for all kinds of frivolous claims. in addition our regulations are very burdensome. i have a trend in kentucky that has 48 employees. he's not going over that number. because he doesn't want to get hit with the obama healthcare taxes. and regarding taxation, we are the highest tax rate in the world with all of our economic rivals. so what happen says when i compete with the canadian company, they have 15% tax rate. we're in 40% world. and that 40% doesn't include

health insurance. i have to pay additional for health insurance. we have a major obstacle being an american factory. these are challenges that easily could be smoothed out and then we would hire more people and grow more and end the recession. >> drew, look, i totally understand. go ahead. >> it is incredibly patronizing for politicians to come in your building, come into your meetings and ask the question, what can we do to help you grow. then we ask, please just get out of the way. eliminate the barriers. then they go and raise our taxes. they either don't understand the problem or they don't care about small businesses. and small businesses are 44% of the jobs in this country. the private sector. 67% of the growth over the past few years has come from the private sector. yet they make it tougher for us to compete globery. >> right. >> we are in a position where the country can make a run and

gain headway globery and they don't recognize it. >> the government is talking about job creation but punishing the job creator. >> correct. >> don't we have a certainty where healthcare costs are going up, hetaxes have began up. if you can plan around it, isn't the certainty a good thing? >> it isn't a good thing. >> right. >> in 38 days they will have another crisis. what happen says president obama has already said he plans on raising or his intention is to raise another 600 billion or more dollars in taxes and he wants to did it on the job creators. i don't think that is a savvy way to grow the economy. what we need is job creator, entrepreneurs, to have enthusiasm about the future. we need an easier platform for us to have confidence. we want to have a very robust economy. right now we have $2.5 trillion

sitting overseas and on our big company balance sheets. they are not being deployed. everybody is hesitating. everybody is pausing because they don't know what washington will do next. we need relief from what is happening in washington. we need some certainty. it is not happening right now. they just kicked the can down the road for 60 days. that's unacceptable. when we buy a piece of equipment, we are buying it for ten years, 20 years. when we hire somebody, we are thinking 20 year horizons. when you kick the can down the road 60 days and tell us you will raise taxes again, that's not comforting for job creator. >> washington's favorite sport, kicking the can. thank you drew and matt. let's hope we have more certainty down the road. more than two months to green light sandy relief. but we talked to one group who said they should have just said no. very contentious debate coming your way next. do not go away. this is $100,000.

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some can't get into their on-line accounts. a volume increased spokesman says the consistent with pass cyber attacks on american banks.

clients were pn c, says it is client access, not security. if it was linked to cyber terrorists, noting other banks are seeing higher internet traffic and the government is aware of it. a cyber terrorist group claimed getting into say. last week. >> we will keep monitoring the situation. in the meantime, breaking news. the senate passed the sandy aid bill 68 days since superstorm sandy pounded the northeast. when can people expect to get it? >> hi, mandy, they just passed that measure in the united states senate a few seconds ago. they did it by voice vote and that means that 9.7 billion is going to things inial flood insurance program.

that's going to help about 115,000 folks who have pending applications for flood damage in with the national flood insurance program. y partial payments so ho have far for the damage that they have sustained during the storm. now what's interesting here is this was just sort after down payment bill that passed the senate and house today. what they are talking about doing later in the month on january 15 to be specific, is bringing up another set of bills for additional sandy relief. let me walk you through what is next here. it gets complicated. there is political wrangling here over the bill because a lot of conservatives don't like the spending in there. so the house will vote on $17 billion sandy relief bill on january 15th and they will also consider an amendment to that bill which will be even bigger, $33 billion, in what they call longer term disaster prevention and disaster aid measures in the $33 billion package. then they will send that over to the senate and have a repeat

with much bigger dollar figures attached to it. the senate could attach its own bill or accept what the house does. but remember the conservatives on the house side are upset because they say that the senators added a lot of extraneous items that had nothing to do with sandy relief. if you ask those senators, they say all of that spending is important then they put it in there for a reason. so there is a lot of fighting of how will money will be doled out. >> some people say congress should have voted no on sandy flood relief. let's bring in gregory meeks and also the club for growths andy roth. both of one thank you for your time. congressman, i would like to get to you first of all. this hurricane was back in october. is this too little too late? >> is. i think we are now 70 days past the hurricane. generally we work and come together as americans to help americans with emergency funding. it was simply ten days after katrina and when we have the tragedies that take place, whether tornadoes in the midwest or earthquakes on the west coast

or storms in florida, we always come together and make sure that emergency funding is there. now we are 70 days down and so we need the emergency funding done. this is the, as you indicated, this is the beginning that was agreed upon with leadership after they abruptly decided to take it off the schedule last tuesday. this is the beginning because otherwise flood insurance would have been expired next week and then come back, as you reported, and look at the bigger relief bill to help rebuild new york, connecticut and new jersey. >> so sandy victims today wait nearly 70 days. why are you saying congress should have voted no to the sandy aid bill? >> we are not opposed to disaster relief in general. we are opposed to it being spent in an irresponsible way. congress just spent days and weeks talking about the fiscal cliff and about how congress needs to be more responsibility p.m. but then they pass this bill without any spending offsets. there's no accountability.

there's no ideas like paying this relief in installments. so that we can track to see that money is spent well. there is still ear marks like what eamon javersed a earlier. >> that's not true. in this bill, some of the items were stripped out of the house bill. and the speaker, i give great praise to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, michael and peter cane. and working with governor christie and governor cuomo. a lot of items talked about in the senate bill were stripped out and never in the house bill. >> congressman meeks, if i could ask a question, i would like to get this answered. because club for growth and

other conservative groups say the federal government shouldn't be in the flood insurance business in the first place. that is better left to the private sector. why is this appropriate federal business? why should the federal government be issuing flood insurance at all. >> well, no one was giving flood insurance. we have individuals and flood assistance we today cover. americans still pay into it. they pay a premium and the government helps. this is what public government does. when americans are in trouble, a disaster, a storm, the government helps get this done. that's what has happened and happened from every disaster we have had. our position is that it should not change now. no reason it change now. >> mr. roth, similar question to you. if you got rid of the flood insurance that federal government does now provide bb what would happen to the house values of people who rely on the federal government? how would you make those people

whole? is that even remotely workable? >> that's a good question but we should explore it. the insurance industry likes the current system because they assume none of the risk and the government pays them to sell and service the policies. so we need -- it is kind of an incestus relaysship between the industry and government. the flood inyou are shuns program has been around for over 40 years. i think we need to try the free market far change rather than rely on the market to subsidize the policies. >> andy, do you also believe in indeed the government is in a position to bailout the victims, the government would be in a position to tell people, you're on your own if you want it live in a flood zone? ? >> no, no. what we prefer is this handled by the states themselves. when you localize disaster relief, there is much more accountability and the relief is much more effective. right now, these regions across the country, send a dollar to washington. washington chews up a portion of

it with its bureaucracy and sends money right back as relief. the local governments and state governments need to be in o charge of this. that that is something we should be focused on long-term. >> we have a number of individuals that are in desperate need. that's what this bill is about now. telling people to vote no is telling people it turn their backs on american citizens. be it democrat or republicans or whatever they are. we have people in needed to and the united states government, united states congress, needs to come to the rescue of our american citizens. >> congressman, thank you very much. >> we've got spending cuts. pay for it. >> understood. great debate. thank you so much to both of you for your candid responses. congressman, and also eamon jafers, thank you for jumping in too. coming up, flu fears are spiking. doctors are seeing the nastiest cases of flu in a long time. and my cohost is hit by the flu. he is not immune either. first, herb has a big time

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greenburg activist robert chatman battling bill ackman on herbalife. chairman says ackman will lose his fight against herbalife. but he have not the only one who thinks they will lose. watching this battle, in his own words, says it is like watching hedge fund porn. herb, thanks for joir # joining us today. >> what makes him so interesting in this case is that he is mostly known as a short seller and he is buying the stock even though he agrees with ackman. joins joins us now live in our studios. john, how are shu. >> i'm pretty well. >> i got to ask a quick question here. >> yeah. >> you're a short seller and you are -- you are long this stock. how does that work? why would you do that? >> i'm pretty familiar with scum

bags. multilevel marketing schemes are scum bags. this has 2.5 pill mmillion in t chain and bill ackman is ripping them off. tobacco kill twice as many people a year as herbalife. herbalife has in its network. they kill 400,000 people in america. hugely profitable. they are scum bags but return cash to shareholders for decades. if you have shorted them, you've been run over. herbalife, five years ago, add about 400 million shares, it now has 108 million shares. it buys back stock regularly. payes a fairly hefty dividend. they are a scum bags but have a stock market scum bag. >> you have to be careful with what you say here. the question is, will the ftc go after the company? one reason you don't believe

that ackman will be right is because you don't believe the fdc will do that. >> you say something obviously wrong and you think the government will rescue you. all herbalife needs to do is find somebody who was fat and is less fat because of herbalife and somewhere in the 2.5 million distributors there will be a few of those. wheel them out in front of them, and you are know, what bill ackman's case now is that the government's going to go and rescue a littbillionaire hedge manager. >> i know another hedge fund manager here john, and he is very politically connected, very short the stock, and he believes that the heat will get turned up on this industry very quickly here. and he believes that one of the things they will be looking at is the industry itself targeting lower income people. so what is to say that even though the ftc didn't do this

before, they don't come back and do it now. >> i believe the same thing about the tobacco companies 20 years ago. the ftc has known about multilevel marketing schemes for decades. if this last three years, ackman is wrong. if it lasts a decade, ackman is so wrong, it's just silly. now this thing really has cash flow. a thesis that says, i got to wait for government is bad thesis. i don't know how many really dodgy companies i've reported to the fcc and what do they do? sometimes they fine them. the vast bulk of the time they don't. >> herb, i'm wondering where we go from here. i know we are looking forward to herbalife's rebuttal and ackman is preparing his rebuttal to that rebuttal. what is the next chapter in the story. >> the this does become the equivalent of the for profit education industry where they go after it and where the industry, people said, they will never go after that industry. the government went after that

and in this case you end up with a very hard reset of the business models of these companies. >> and for profit education industry case the victim is at least in part the government. the government giving stupid loans. a relatively easy way of the government reducing the fiscal -- >> john, if in it case the victim is lower income population, a lot of lower income population and obama administration could be very interested in that, wouldn't that potentially have an impact? >> when did the government care about lowering people that way? lower income people are largely the victims of tobacco companies too. you look at tobacco, it is completely inversely correlated to wealth and income. rich people don't smoke. poor people smoke. people in most jurisdictions just raise taxes from that. >> okay, we will see. we will see who is correct on this one. john, thank you very much for coming along. great to see another australian on the set as well. one australian too many maybe.

>> herb is back for rapid fire. we will talk about apple and about all kinds of things and also a big trouble on the mighty mississippi. why shipping could grind to a halt, drying up billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. "street signs" is back in just a moment's time. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 when i'm trading, i'm so into it, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 hours can go by before i realize tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that i haven't even looked away from my screen. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that kind of focus... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that's what i have when i trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550

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okay, street talk time. i will do this solely until the end and then we will bring herby end np apple has been a real drag on the nasdaq today. there are concerns it needs to come up with new and innovative products and strategy analystics forecast that samsung of south korea. widen its lead over apple in global smart phone sales with 35% growth. hence we see apple to the down side today. we see mosaic fertilizer company going down. it expects margins to fall even further in the current quarter reflecting the low price contract with china. why is the stock higher in the company earned one buck to a share and that was beating expectations. trans ocean, big rig contractor, right? also moving higher because it settled 1.4 billion over u.s.

government charges with the bp mexico oil spill and admitted its crew on the deep water horizon was partly responsible. it raised one buck to $55. and gm, more than 69,000 full size trucks and vans recalled. reason why? they can roll away after being parked. obviously, not ideal. if you have a truck and it rolls away down the hill. bring this in. all this is something that cramer talked about this morning. herb thinks it is a ticking time bomb. how do you respond to that? >> and i'm not putting words in his mouth, but -- >> but he did. >> and the issue, i've been critical of this company in the past. it is growing by very strong growth. they reaffirmed it. you know what is interesting. going forward, you will see if they make the guidance they said they would meet. you will want to see if insiders are selling stock into this

period. and something else. if you look at sales per store, productivity of stores, even with current guidance and continuing to go down, something you want it watch as this story continues to evolve. i tell you, i was in one of the ulta sales during christmas, saying they were slow. in a crowded mall. ways there with my wife wanting to pick something up. we happened to be in the mall. there weren't very many people if the store. >> we are watching social media stocks. really soaring this year. let's take it over to julia boorstin, what is going on? ? facebook shares are up over 3.5%. goldman sachs reiterating a buy rating on facebook saying they have various wayes it make money, gifts in particular.

zinga restructures and prepare for some new game launches this year and today yelp is up 6%. a court ruled in favor of sites like yelp saying negative reviews shouldn't be censored and antitrust sites like google saying they can keep pro proprietary sites to themselves. >> you might be watching "street signs" with the flu on the couch. we knew it could have been one of the worst seasons in a long time and guess what? it is. and it keeps getting worse. robert, what are we looking at here? >> mandy, centers for disease control, comes out with a statistics from across the country on flu every week and on fridays. this week shows for the weekend in december 29, latest we get, took a big jump. a lot of flu in 41 states now. and there is flu everywhere. but it is considered widespread.

there you see the map in all of the states, except for the west. the country sort of saturated. and it is a very tough flu this year. called h3m2. makes people very sick when they get it. if you haven't gotten your flu shot, there is still plenty of vaccine out there, go get it. >> go get it and hopefully it works. let's bring in bob, our cnbc farm suit call contributor, a w a closer look at the players. if you are feeling miserable and you have the flu, you may as well try to make money on the stocks as well. >> good afternoon, mandy. i think there are three plays. first the vaccine manufacturers. which are glaxo and nofartus. that's big market and big player is santa fe flu zone. unfortunately the companies are 40, $50 billion companies. it doesn't really move the

needel that much. second are treatment for influenza or flu. that's tamiflu and rolenza. these treatments tend to reduce severity aduration of flu if taken within the first 48 hours. there san australian company, which you may know, bota, that gets a royalty on sales with rolenza. we can all good into rite-aid or wallgreen's and get a shot for $30. the pharmacy chains make money on that vaccine. but also use that as a means it drive traffic into their stores and often coupon along with those flu shots. >> i would like to know, though, barbara, how many of the stocks you mentioned have had big gains. obviously, the fact that this is a really bad flu season is well flagged in advance. >> absolutely. good point. there's two things.

one is this is, as you said, has been well anticipated and is not moving stocks at this point. the second is, there isn't a dramatic bang for the buck in these companies given their size. the only exception is bota. >> it is very difficult, barb, but a lot of companies have to keep on interowe vating, right? the strains of flu change every single year. i'm wondering whether the strain we've gotten now in terms of the vac even is well matched with the flu. in other words, if i get that flu shot today, am i guaranteed i won't get the flu? >> no, you're not guaranteed and you have a much better chance of not getting as sick if you get the flu. as barbara pointed out, in terms of profits of these companies from flu vaccines are pretty minuscule drivers of overall profit. they are making a comfortable amount of money because u.s. government buyes a certain amount of flu vaccine every year. and the problem with that, according to many public health experts is that there is a lack

of motivation to make an even better flu vaccine. everybody wants a flu vaccine that would work once, maybe twice in your lifetime, you get the flu vaccine and it would protect you against all kinds ever flus. but there is not enough money to be made off of it because they make so much off of the annual flu vaccine. it is not as good. >> thank you so much to bob. thank to barbara as well. everybody, keep safe. don't get the flu. coming up, big bairthday fo the eurozone. and good old huck finn and a slow down of old man river. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet

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what does does erskine bowles think? we will hear from him in a few minutes. and the debt ceiling fight, you will be shocked and amazed to find out what it is, but i'm not telling you right now. but i will tell you that michelle caruso-cabrera is with me. see you at the top of the hour from the new york stock exchange. >> bill, go g to see you. let's take a euro trip and party like it's 1999 with a "street signs" time machine. on this day, 14 years ago, the all mighty euro debuted in 11 european nation possess. since then, the euro was up 11% against the u.s. dollar. today the euro is sitting just about flat with the dollar but well off the highs we saw in 2008. joining us is kathy from bks management. happy birthday euro, 14 years old today, has it been a success? >> i think in the past 14 years we have seen the best and worst of the euro. i think the fact that it is still here, and the fact that germany and largest members of the eurozone are fighting to

keep the currency in place when it could have evaporated, six nos ago for example, says a lot about how important the monetary union is for the region. so i would say yes. it is still a success. though now we see how the smallest countries can still bring the kurnty down. it is important to realize that it is a region of -- that a currency without a country and encompassing 17 different countries that could help or hurt the currency. >> you're right. it's been through thick and thin. about this time last year, we were debating whether or not we would see the break-up of the euro in 2012. what is 2013 going to bring? where do you see the euro dollar rate being at a the end of this year? >> 2013 i think will be a year of reduced stress. we are seeing it. we even saw not too long ago spanish ten-year bond yields drop below 10%. so the worst, in my opinion, is over for the euro. the euro has come down quite a

bit over the last couple of days. but i think that here around 1:30, we are seeing value point in the euro. this year we will probably see a little bit of recovery in the global economy. so i think by the end of this year we will see the euro dollar between the 133 to 135 region. that's yi think that current levels kind of get long euros. >> you think the fed is not as serious about slowing down qe3s might have been suggested yesterday. >> i think they are having the discussions. i want it rule out the possibility of them ruling out qe3. if that happens, it won't be until we see a stronger u.s. recovery. at that point, i think you will see improvements in the eurozone which will help the euro. so at the enend of the day, i think the federal may have qe2, but it may come a at time when it is more after risk on move

that drives euros rather than u.s. policy. >> thank you as wuls for joininging us on cnbc, kathy lien. at scottrade, you won't just find us online, you'll also find us in person, with dedicated support teams at over 500 branches nationwide. so when you call or visit, you can ask for a name you know. because personal service starts with a real person. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. our support teams are nearby, ready to help. it's no wonder so many investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans.

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big trouble on the mighty mississippi. draught conditions in the midwest left riveres so parched and dry that shipping could grind to a halt within days. it could have a huge impact on the $2.8 billion of goods estimated to move up and down the waterway this month along. let's bring in mike toue and sharon epperson. great to have you with us today. mike, i would like it ask you what is at stake here. >> thank you, for the opportunity to be here opinion what's at stake right now, this month, are 8,000 jobs, $54 million in payroll, a 7 million tons of commodities valued at $2.8 billion. vital for our national economy. >> sharon, which do you think would be is talking to a number of energy traders today, this wasn't even on their radar, and it could have a

significant impact on diesel demand without the barge traffic. we're going to see a lot of these commodities trucked or gone by railroad so that is going to impact diesel demand. that could be significant at a time when difficulty latt fuel supplies are about 15% below the five-year average, so we could see definitely an impact in the price of heating oil. that's something that some traders may not have factored in for the next couple of weeks. >> mike, is there anything we can do about this to mitigate this situation? >> yes. we've asked for two things. one is expedited rock removal which impedes navigation on the middle mississippi, and the other is release of water, specifically from the missouri river. the corps of engineers turned off the spigot back in december, reduced the flow of the missouri by a third, and that has an impact on water levels on the mississippi. we would like that water restored, but only 1% of what's actually in storage. >> why haven't they done it yet?

>> they say that they have no authority to do that, that they only managed the missouri river for the benefit of the missouri basin. >> so we've got lots of jobs at risk, right? >> correct. >> and millions of dollars of wages at risk. how likely is that worst case scenario, mike? >> well, we had good news yesterday. the corps of engineers announced that the rock removal work has gone ahead of schedule, and on the 10th to the 13th of january they will complete that work, and we'll have two feet of additional navigation capacity, and they believe under normal conditions that this should be sufficient to sustain navigation until april. we're hopeful that that is what works out, but we feel that if we had an assurance that the water would be available, that we could load our barges to nine-foot depth. we're currently loading to eight, because we take three weeks to get to our goals most often if we load from the gulf, and we have to be able to plan for the delivery of the water

level at the time our barges reach their customers. >> yeah, sharon? >> the other good news is we're at least well supplied when it comes to things like corn and wheat, and that is something that although we'll see a disruption in terms of the trafficking of this -- these commodities, we still have plenty of supplies, so it may not be that substantial an impact. >> mike? >> also, though, we're talking about the movement of chemicals that are the input for manufacturing, the movement of coal for the generation of electricity, the movement of gasoline to consumers. if we're shut down, those commodities don't move, those jobs are lost. >> what about going on land, or is it much more expensive and much slower? >> well, it would take 1,050 trucks or 216 rail cars per barge tow, so we do not have the physical capacity to move the commodities that move by river by other modes of transportation. we would clog our nation's infrastructure if we could not use the river.

>> even a slowdown in the river, mandy, that's exactly the reason why the traders need to be watching the heating oil contract because that's definitely going to impact diesel demand and heating oil proxy for trading here. >> i know that it's almost impossible to be able to predict droughts years out. this is something that nevertheless does occur from time to , mike. doesn't it beg the question we need better infrastructure for it to stop? >> we need better investment in our current infrastructure. the last time we had a drought like this was 1988, but this year we're heading for a record that hasn't been seen in the 84 years, 88 years that we've been keeping records. this is serious. >> okay. well, let's hope it doesn't get to the worst case scenario. mike tooey, thank you very much for joining us and sharon epperson, thank you for the commodity impact as well. next up, sean connery is giving his thanks to you. better have your wallet handy. "street signs" is back after this quick break. care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters...

my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

well, now for today's thing that makes you go hmm. sir sean connery has offered to write you a personalized, handwritten thank-you note all for the low price of $500 american in a donation to the friends of scotland. well, talking of britain, listen up, "downton abbey" fans, robert frank is giving you an inside look of what it's really like to live and own a really great british estate, and there are a lot of hidden costs, aren't there? >> a lot of hidden costs, and they are very high. you don't have to be the earl of

grantham to own a british country estate, but you do have to have a lot of money to burn. let's take a look. in the spirit of "downton abbey" which, of course, starts its third season on pbs this sunday, we decided to take a look at the real cost of owning a great country british estate, starting off with the staff, butler, footman, cleaning staff, secretary, cook, gardeners, grounds people and games keepers for when you have the hunt. the total cost there, $600,000 to $1 million a year and there's all the leaky roofs and crumbling gargoyles, repairing and maintaining that. that's about $100,000 a year. you'll need to renovate every 20 or 30 years or so much. that's $6 million to $8 million, so total annual bill for being a member of the british gentry, around $1.5 million. that, of course, is just the burn rate, the cost of buying your own edwardian castle. also huge here, too, from the

agents in britain, bletchin gdon park for 2.3 million or you request k squeeze into burnham hall, 38 acres, for a mere $11 million. no wonder so many british acristocrats were house rich and cash poor. in the downton days, russian oligarchs, maybe that's the next hit series, "the czars of dorset." >> i wonder if there's any statistics on people who think wacko, i've got the $32 million, i'll buy myself an estate and a couple years down the line they say this is way too much money, way too much work and it's not worth it and they sell them. they flip them basically. >> our viewer service. i talked to the estate agents and they say exactly